Harry Potter and the Year of the Guardians
by ShadowLord5
Summary: RHr. Please RR. Sirius is dead but Harry isn't alone. In his fight to come to terms with his destiny he is aided by three self-appointed guardians: A Dark Creature, the only loving link to his parents; a spy who loathes and helps him; a DE long thought de


A/N: Sirius is dead, but Harry finds out that he is not as alone as he believes. As he comes to terms with his destiny with the help of Ron and Hermione, he also finds himself aided in his struggle against the Dark Lord by three self-appointed guardians: A Dark Creature who is his last loving link to his parents; a spy, who loathes the Boy Who Lived, but can't stop saving his life; and, a Death Eater long believed dead, whose presence in Harry's life ensures that he can never quite exorcise the ghost of his godfather. 

** MY NAME IS REGULUS **

Australia—1996, winter. 

He didn't know why he was here, in a wizard's pub, today of all days. He usually avoided visits to the magical world, coming only once a year, on Hallows Eve, celebrating the fall of the Dark Lord, and doused himself in enough firewhiskey to keep him satisfied till the next trip. But something had pulled at him this morning, something that made him go out of his way to come by the Barrel and Broomsticks, the pub for homesick Brits—an unfamiliar feeling in his gut that he was afraid to give a name to. 

He had avoided his instincts most of his early life in favor of rules and order. And those rules, those traditions, they had got him here. In hiding, ostensibly dead, far from home, from everything he had once held dear. Years in which he avoided thought of home, except once last year when he had felt the mark on his arm burn again with agonizing sharpness, and old fears had risen from their graves, only to be pacified when the days that followed brought no news. But his instinct continues to nag him, filled with nights with restless sleep.  

So this morning, he had given in, let his instinct guide him to the pub. And…nothing. He had entered, picked his usual seat—if one could call a seat one graced once a year a 'usual' one—and sat, quiet, tensed, waiting for something to occur. He was still waiting. The room was small and crowded; wizards didn't seem to adhere to the same work ethic that muggles did. It was aired well enough despite the absence of fans and windows—the owners very obviously relied on charms—but he felt stifled within its walls, wanted nothing more than to get out.  He looked at his wristwatch—muggle; he'd been there for over an hour, and, despite his rising impatience, couldn't bring himself to leave. He needed a sign one-way or the other, a confirmation of refutation of this primitive fear. 

A furious flurry of wings caught his attention. Owls swooped gracefully down onto tables, and held out their legs to diners. The big block letters caught his attention; he could make out one word of the headline. 

**RETURN**

His insides seemed to freeze slowly; he didn't understand why this innocuous word was making his stomach churn. What did he have to worry about? It was probably about some faceless politician. _Tell yourself that_, a nasty voice inside his head whispered, _a politician indeed_! _Why, they all look like someone has died_. They did. All those who had received newspapers had turned immobile; their eyes were the only parts of their faces moving, restlessly roving over the paper. Conversation seemed to have died about the room as if by common consent. It was a wake. 

The bartender spoke first. He was a fat, balding man with an oily face and manner, always smiling, with little of the warmth that Tom…_Tom_…had back home. God help us, the Dark Lord, the bartender gasped. 

The Dark Lord. Return. The ice reached past his stomach, through his ribcage into his heart. Return. The Dark Lord. All his life he had been proud of his analytical mind. His brother had been the empty-headed Gryffindor; he'd been the thinker, the Slytherin, the one whose brain was always on overdrive. And now, for only the second time in his life, his mind was blank.

"The Dark Lord is back?" he croaked out (rather stupidly, he felt). It was as if they had all been waiting for an opening; conversations sprouted up in all corners of the room; low and anxious, loud, fearful; every nuance, every turn of tone he could think of encapsulated in this room. 

"Ay, he's back," spoke a gruff old man sitting close to him, waving the paper in his direction, "says here he tried to break into the English Ministry of Magic. Stopped by aurors it seems." 

The Dark Lord stopped by Aurors? If his throat weren't so painfully constricted, he would have laughed. So the Potter boy had been right; the boy had been vilified as a liar, and he had been right. All the years of hoping, praying, giving in to the false comfort provided by the layers of minutiae that governed his life, all for nothing. They would find him out soon.

It was all Dumbledore's fault, he thought. He should have been Minister of Magic, but the fool had opted to stay in Hogwarts, letting that ineffectual Fudge take up the reigns as Minister, letting known death-eaters (known to him anyway; after all he had been one himself) pose as respectable citizens, let them keep their hands on power. Dumbledore was no fool; he had despised the man during his time at Hogwarts, but he respected his power all the same. 

The old man was droning on, the details of the attack, the names of the captured death eaters…_Cousin_ _Malfoy. All the years of hiding, of faked philanthropy wasted_. That thought made him smile. Smile till he heard the one name he didn't want to hear. 

"Black?" he asked, "Sirius Black?" 

The old man nodded. "Dead. Killed him, the aurors did." There were a few congratulatory murmurs from the other tables. 

Dark Lord's greatest supporter, he was…. 

First to escape Azkaban. Just like his cousin Lestrange…

That entire family, as black as their name… 

_But not Sirius, not Sirius. Not even when I warned him that those opposing the Dark Lord would die—he laughed at me. What made you join him Sirius. Was it thinking I had died? _It was this thought that had niggled in his mind ever since he had first heard of Sirius' betrayal of the Potters years before. The boy he knew had been so fearlessly opposed to the Dark Lord. He needed to know why Sirius had turned, if it was somehow his fault. "Do they name the auror? The one who killed Black?" 

The old man shook his head and handed him the paper. Sirius stared back at him, wild and menacing: it was the photograph they had used after his Azkaban escape, the one that morphed the handsome features into something monstrous. No one would look at this photograph and say he had anything in common with Sirius Black. Despite the fact that he knew—as Sirius, mother, and everyone they met had attested to time and again—his face was exactly like Sirius'. _Mini-Me_, Sirius had teasingly called him when they were still on speaking terms. Sirius, teasing, joking, always so alive… 

He heard nothing more of the talk around him; his hands shook slightly as he placed a few coins on the table and headed outside. This was it, he knew. He had to come out of the cocoon he had grown comfortable in, had to go back home. He had an auror to seek out; he may have been a traitor to the Dark Lord, despised by both Light and Dark, but Regulus, last of the House of Black would not, could not, forget blood.

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Hogwarts, England—One month later, Summer. 

Remus Lupin was tired. Tired of living in a house that oozed memories of Sirius from every nook and cranny, tired of looking at Severus Snape—God! How he hated that man—whose slight, almost undetectable triumph at the news of Sirius' death he alone had caught, and tired of the ministry of magic. Even now, despite having had the truth stare him literally in the face, Fudge was trying to play this the politician's way, with tentative steps aimed at keeping him in office beyond Voldemort, while leaving the true task of fighting Voldemort in Dumbledore's hands. Hence, his refusal to sign a decree that would make obsolete those ministry laws regulating the shameful treatment of part-humans like Remus (who knew if it would come back to haunt Fudge in the next _election_?), while expecting, as some sort of right, their support in the war. After all, he thought bitterly, they had deigned to notice that we exist, even if only to serve as cannon fodder. 

But what he was most worked up about at the moment was Sirius. Or the matter in which the ministry had dealt with Sirius' death. Perhaps it was the knowledge that the general public wouldn't take it too well when they realized that al the governmental reassurance they had been hearing the past year was a lie, that the ministry had been wrong, that they had sought to vilify the ones who told the truth. Whatever it was, Fudge had decided to play up the capture of Lucius and his cohorts, which was fine with Remus. But, deciding that it was too much to expect the public to understand yet another mistake, Fudge had conveniently forgotten to relay the news of Sirius' innocence. Hence the newspapers had all reported the news of the death of Voldemort's right hand man, Sirius Black. And now, Fudge claimed, releasing the news of Sirius' innocence would only serve to confuse the people, question the effectiveness of their ministry. And that, he said, would only serve Voldemort's purpose. Remus couldn't forget the look on Fudge's face as he uttered those words; the pompous ass had the temerity to look reasonable. And Dumbledore had given in. 

"We must choose our battles wisely," he had told Remus later. Dumbledore was right, he knew, but he couldn't help feeling that this was a second time he had let Sirius down; the first was when they had carted Sirius off to Azkaban without a trial. Remus had been weighed down with sorrow then, numb at the thought that James and Lily were dead. And, the ministry wouldn't have listened to him; they would have believed he was in league with Sirius, being a Dark creature. But this time, he knew he had right on his side, knew that Fudge was looking out for his own interests, and he had done nothing. 

The only consolation that he had was that Harry hadn't thrown a tantrum about it yet. He wondered momentarily if Dumbledore had doctored the newspapers that Harry received; Remus wouldn't put it past him, but it would be foolish because Harry would hear of it, if not from Ron and Hermione, then from others when he returned to school. 

He looked at his watch—he'd bought it to fit in with the muggle world as part of his activities for the order—and saw that it was almost time for the meeting to begin. His own report, he thought ruefully, would be brief and unsatisfying. The other werewolves had all but laughed him out. The only reason they hadn't attacked him was because of their respect for Dumbledore. He wondered how many other part-humans would refuse them support because of Fudge's idiocy. _No use thinking about it_, he told himself, _no use letting the what-ifs eat you up the way it did Sirius_. And, with a final adjustment of his tattered robes, he walked to the headmaster's office. 


End file.
